Ryan gave his grandmother a smile, knowing she meant well, but uncomfortable with the razor-sharp insight she’d delivered about him.
“Thanks for the dating advice, Grandma,” he said. “I’ll bear it all in mind.”
Miriam’s gaze scoured his face for a long beat before she nodded and gave a half-shrug.
“You’re a grown man and you know your own mind. But don’t forget that an old fogey like me knows a thing or two about life and love.”
“I never doubted it.”
Miriam laughed and picked up her mug of warm milk. Crossing the kitchen, she kissed Ryan’s cheek.
“Goodnight, my darling boy,” she said.
“Goodnight, Grandma.”
Once Miriam had left to go upstairs, Ryan washed up the milk pan she’d used and wiped the counters, and then stuffed the empty pizza boxes into the recycling. His grandmother’s words echoed in his head as he finished the evening’s chores, and his thoughts turned inevitably to Grace.
When he’d walked her home tonight and they’d kissed goodbye, it had taken all his willpower not to ask himself inside her house in order to continue what they’d started. Releasing her from his embrace had been the last thing he’d wanted.
When Grace was in his arms, he felt… like everything was right in the world.
Ryan let that thought rattle through his head. It was accurate, but there was something else lurking beneath those simple words, something that dug much deeper.
Leaving the kitchen, he returned to the living room and picked up the new leather-bound notebook his grandmother hadgifted him. He sat down on the sofa and grabbed a pen from the coffee table, mulling over the words that were spinning around inside his head.
As he tapped his pen on the first blank page of the notebook, he thought of the melody he’d begun picking out over the last few days while strumming on his acoustic guitar. He thought, too, of the fleeting lyrics he’d jotted down while experimenting with the new music.
Thoughts of Grace had filled his mind while he’d been playing the guitar and scrawling down those lyrics. She’d inspired him to write, even though he was supposed to be taking a break from work. Not that it had felt much like work to write the music Grace had sparked inside him.
Ryan fetched his guitar and the old notebook containing the lyrics he’d penned, and then sat back down and began playing softly, so as not to disturb his grandmother upstairs. The melody he’d sketched out continued to take shape as his fingers worked the guitar strings and found the notes he’d toyed with.
The melody was understated and tender, rising to a heart-felt and aching crescendo on the chorus. It was a classic mid-tempo love song that conjured romance and starlight and the timeless story of two hearts finding their way home to each other.
Ryan strummed the guitar, tested the chords, adjusted the notes as they climbed towards the bridge. He scrawled in the notebook, scratching out lyrics, switching words around, seeking the essence of the story that would unfold within the four-minute song.
Two hearts finding their way home to each other…
Never felt home until I found you…
For so long I was lost, until my heart found you…
Ryan played the guitar and scribbled out lyrics, made adjustments and tweaks, then played and scribbled some more.
Twenty minutes later, he was stunned to discover he’d found the perfect combination of music and lyrics for the love song, a blend of soul-stirring melody and yearning narrative that together conveyed the aching beauty of true love. The bridge refrain captured the story with simple elegance:
I was lost, until my heart found you.
And the echoing repeat of the lyrics in the chorus brought it all home with soul:
Lost and found, your heart is my home.
Ryan strummed the chords of the chorus and then the bridge, and stared in wonder at the notebook now covered in lyrics and notes and annotated progressions.
He loved it. He’d never written a song so quickly before, and while there were still adjustments and revisions to make once he was in the recording studio, the essence of it all was there.
The song was simple, but it wastrueand that was what mattered most of all when it came to songwriting. There had to be truth and honesty and…
…vulnerability.
